[3][4] Richard Burkhardt received his undergraduate degree from Knox College in 1939 and his doctorate from Harvard University in 1945.
In addition to this, during the 1978–1979 academic year, Richard Burkhardt served as acting president of the university.
[citation needed] In 1980, he returned to the history department as a distinguished service professor, and he taught courses in his specialty until his retirement in 1985.
He collaborated with James K. Danglade on the research and writing of Sixty Years of Outreach and Public Service: A History of Continuing Education at Ball State University, published in 1985.
In 1991, he published Eliza Julia Flower: Letters of an English Gentlewoman: Life on the Illinois-Indiana Frontier, 1817-1861, in collaboration with Janet Walker.